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How to Compare Two Versions of a Document in Word 2013

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Updated:  
2016-03-27 11:51:36
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Word 2010 For Dummies
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You have the original copy of your Word 2013 document — the stuff you wrote. You also have the copy that Barbara, the vixen from the legal department, has worked on for a week or so. Both documents have different names, of course. Your job is to compare them to see exactly what’s been changed from the original. Here’s what to do:

Don’t open the original document just yet.

Don’t open the original document just yet.

If you already opened the original document in anticipation of what comes next, go ahead and close it.

Click the Review tab.

Click the Review tab.

You should see the Compare group.

From the Compare group, choose Compare→Compare.

From the Compare group, choose Compare→Compare.

The Compare Documents dialog box shows up.

Choose the original document from the Original Document drop-down list.

Choose the original document from the Original Document drop-down list.

Locate the drop=down list to choose your document.

Choose the edited document from the Revised Document drop-down list.

Choose the edited document from the Revised Document drop-down list.

In either case (in Step 4 or 5), when you cannot find the original or revised document, click the Wee Folder icon (shown in the margin) to browse for the documents you want to open.

Click OK.

Click OK.

Word compares the two documents and notes all changes. Then it displays a list of changes. You see the compared document with changes marked, plus the original and revised documents.

Look it over! Peruse the changes made to your pristine prose by the barbarian interlopers; use the Reviewing pane to witness each change individually. You can click a change in the Reviewing pane to quickly see which part of your document was folded, spindled, or mutilated.

About This Article

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About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.